Creative trail ride

This past Monday (Labour Day), Maureen, Meaghan, Tania and I met at the Blackfoot's Central Staging area for a nice trail ride. Tania has become disenchanted with trail rides lately because there's no creativity in them, so we all agreed that this time we'd do some creative things on the trail and not just go from A to B. And Maureen and Meaghan are definitely the ones you want along if you want creativity! I brought Gypsy this time as she's been pretty neglected this summer while I've spent most of my time with Skittles.

Before we even got on the trail we started with going sideways over the logs bordering the parking lot! Khan (Maureen's horse) had absolutely no trouble with this, so she also jumped back and forth a few times as well as just had him stop over top of the log. Gypsy had trouble with sideways over the log while I was on her back, so I got off and asked her from the ground. She managed that OK, so when I got back on, she managed to work it out better and we went both ways over the log.

After we were on the trail a while, we played "leap-frog" where the last horse passes all the other horses and moves to the front to take the lead. When Gypsy was in the back, I asked her to stay behind while the other horses kept moving. She got really agitated when the other horses were out of sight - lots of jigging sideways, up and down, pawing the ground. I worked on asking her to stand until she was able to stay still long enough for me to ask her to go forward (rather than let her). After the first couple tries, I realized this was too far out of her comfort zone to start, and the next few tries, I asked her forward if she stood still while the other horses moved ahead, but before they were out of sight. That worked way better. We can build that threshold over time.

We also worked on sideways down the trail, backwards up hills, jumping logs, point to point (eg. allowing grazing only when they got to a chosen spot). And at a couple spots along the trail we had to go through gates. There was a bit of a squeeze between fences and then the gate just pushed open. Maureen had no trouble at all getting through the first gate (she really had no trouble with anything she asked of Kahn!). Gypsy had some trouble because I had to ask her forward enough to get her head and neck over the gate so I could reach it to push on it. And since the gate was in the way, she got confused. Eventually we figured it out, but then she squirted through the gate and ripped the leg on my riding pants (argh!). Meaghan just drove Reesa through from the ground (smart girl!). Tania and Jack also managed without any trouble at all.

At a similar gate on the way back, Gypsy managed it much better and came through the gate a little slower, but I had to let go once we were through because I couldn't get Gypsy to yield her hind end around so I could move sideways to close it. Oh well, baby steps right? I'd like to work on gates with her more at home so it'll get better the next time we're on the trail.

Maureen actually backed through the second gate! Woohoo! Very impressive. Good Better Best!

Back at the staging area, I asked Gypsy to go sideways over the log again and she did it without any trouble.

A really nice and very interesting trail ride! I hope we do it again soon.